Arma 3 will be a Steam exclusive and launching this year

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Arma 3 developer Bohemia Interactive has confirmed that the latest instalment in its military shooter series will be launching exclusively on Steam.

Bohemia announced the game’s exclusivity over on its blog this afternoon, and developer Joris-Jan van ‘t Land added, “Not only is Arma 3 PC-exclusive, but now we have decided to make it Steam-exclusive as well. Since we expect this will upset some of our fans, I’d like to take the time to honestly explain our motivations.”

Land then went on to explain that Steam’s track-record as a proven distribution platform, smoother gameplay experience, quicker patching as a result of Steamworks and that the removal of piracy were all factors in the decision.

On the issue of piracy he continued, “Think of it what you want, but piracy is affecting us as a business. However, Bohemia Interactive has tried to grow with the evolution of the Internet, rather than to fight it.

“We have removed intrusive Digital Rights Management (DRM) from our games several months after release, but cannot afford to launch without such technologies. We strongly believe the best anti-piracy comes from offering valuable online services that people are willing to invest in.

“Supporting that philosophy: we saw we could not deliver in-house solutions on time, but could take Steam’s and expand upon them. It will be possible to run Steam in Offline mode, and still play the game (with the exception of online services obviously, including multiplayer itself).”

Arma 3 will launch in 2013.

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Also, you can now download the DayZ mod and launch it with Steam. Looks like the DayZ stand alone will be only on Steam as well.